New Revell 1/350 Bismarck to be released in October...

gjek wrote:

Look out Tamiya!

 Actually in my opinion, the Tamiya Bismarck is no match for this one...

onyxman wrote:

That's nice, I guess. Personally, I am tired of BismarkTitanicYamatoetcetc. I wish they would come out with something different.

Agreed!  With all the possibilities out there, you'd think they would come up with an original idea for a "new" kit.  I'm not saying the Tamiya kit is state of the art any more (although I have had several of their 1/350 kits since the late 80's and haven't gotten around to building any of them yet) - but it's not like they didn't know there was already a Bismarck out there - how about the Graf Spee, or the Gneisenau, or the Admiral Hipper, or the Prinz Eugen, if it has to be a German ship.  Or the Graf Zeppelin, if they want something really unusual.  Maybe even one of their destroyers - they had some fine destroyers in the German Navy - they pretty much outclassed any of the British destroyers they could have come up against.  But I've never seen a decent offering of any of them.  And definitely not in any large scale.

onyxman wrote:

That's nice, I guess. Personally, I am tired of BismarkTitanicYamatoetcetc. I wish they would come out with something different.

but i will also say this.    if it is anything at all like what they have been making as of late ie: the fw200  and the fw 290  thenit will be a great model at a great price

If you compare the pictures on the website to what Tamiya has to offer, you know it will be worth every penny.

I believe the pricetag will be around 90 dollar or something, difficult to say with the dollar being less than the euro on one hand, but modelling supplies at your side being cheaper than here.

Anyone, yes, it is yet another bismarck, but hey, the armorguys have about a hundered Shermans and Tigers to choose from, the flyboys have the same thing with their Spitfires and Messerschmitts.

Besides, there are (hopefully) still new people joining (or re-entering) the hobby and even experienced people who have not yet built a Bismarck, isn't it great to have this detailed kit opposed to having to pay a higher price for the Tamiya kit and than even more for an aftermarket set just to make it remotely acceptable ? 

If you compare the pictures on the website to what Tamiya has to offer, you know it will be worth every penny. Just an example, if you look at picture nr 11, you can see that you can even opt to store the airplane in its hangar, that's the first time I see this on any kit.

I believe the pricetag will be around 90 dollar or something, difficult to say with the dollar being less than the euro on one hand, but modelling supplies at your side being cheaper than here.

Anyone, yes, it is yet another bismarck, but hey, the armorguys have about a hundered Shermans and Tigers to choose from, the flyboys have the same thing with their Spitfires and Messerschmitts.

Besides, there are (hopefully) still new people joining (or re-entering) the hobby and even experienced people who have not yet built a Bismarck, isn't it great to have this detailed kit opposed to having to pay a higher price for the Tamiya kit and than even more for an aftermarket set just to make it remotely acceptable ? 

DanCooper wrote:

Anyone, yes, it is yet another bismarck, but hey, the armorguys have about a hundered Shermans and Tigers to choose from, the flyboys have the same thing with their Spitfires and Messerschmitts.

this is true  but with the armor and the aircraft you can build 50-60 of them in diff versions and diff paint schemes  the bis can only be done one way  so everyone's models (except for the amount of details put in ) will all be the same

i would have likes to have seen a ship that had perhaps 4-6 sister ships  and then to 2-3 diff configurations through out the war  so  a variety can be done from the same molds

I didn't intend to sound negetive about this. I'm glad the people who are interested in this area have a new and better kit. Just seems like the most popular subjects from the manufacturers are ships whose main claim to fame was sinking in some spectacular way.

In my experience, sinking is undesireable! 

In a way it is kind of understandable that those ships are far mor popular for the manufacterers, thse are the ships that everybody knows, even people who haven't made any special studies about maritime history.  So it is logical that these ships are better suited to lure new customers. Who, except for us, modelers and history buffs, knows what kind of ship the Emden was, or what does the name Dreadnought mean to someone who's knowlidge is limited to what they see on the silver screen, so these people are not going to buy a ship they don't know or have never even heard of.

If Hollywood decided tomorrow to make a movie about HMS Dreadnought, or another "obscure" but important historical ship, we would soon see more mainstream models of that one appear. 

DanCooper wrote:

Anyone, yes, it is yet another bismarck, but hey, the armorguys have about a hundered Shermans and Tigers to choose from, the flyboys have the same thing with their Spitfires and Messerschmitts.

Maybe so, but that doesn't mean it isn' nauseatingly monotonous to go into the hobby shop and look a the shelves with hundreds of boxes on them, and see a selection of maybe half a dozen different aircraft or tanks.  Me, I have a Spitfire ansd a Bf109 kit in my stash.  Even an FW190 and a Mustang.  So there's nothing at the local hobby shop that I want to get.  Do I really need the same sense of disappointment when I move over to the ship models section, too?

DURR wrote:

i would have likes to have seen a ship that had perhaps 4-6 sister ships  and then to 2-3 diff configurations through out the war  so  a variety can be done from the same molds

Ditto!  Say, for example, the Kongo (4 ships), Takao (4), Myoko (4), Nagara (6), Kuma (5), Agano (4), Fubuki (19), Kagero (18), and Yugumo (20).  Or as I mentioned above, any of the German destroyers, cruisers or battleships - not to mention the Graf Spee, Admiral Scheer or Deutschland/Lutzow pocket battleships.  Or the 4 Littorio class battleships from the Regia Marina (I prefer the Duilio myself), the Trento heavy cruisers (4).  See?  There's tons of different classes to choose from.  If only the manufacturers would ask the builders what they would BUY!

DanCooper wrote:

In a way it is kind of understandable that those ships are far mor popular for the manufacterers, thse are the ships that everybody knows, even people who haven't made any special studies about maritime history.  So it is logical that these ships are better suited to lure new customers. Who, except for us, modelers and history buffs, knows what kind of ship the Emden was, or what does the name Dreadnought mean to someone who's knowlidge is limited to what they see on the silver screen, so these people are not going to buy a ship they don't know or have never even heard of. If Hollywood decided tomorrow to make a movie about HMS Dreadnought, or another "obscure" but important historical ship, we would soon see more mainstream models of that one appear.

Yes, what you say is true - manufacturers cater to the general public and sell what the mopst people will want, or basically what they will recognize.  A lot of them still recognize the name Bismarck, and will go for "the largest battleship ever built", or the Arizona, or the Iowa class because it is famous for still being in use.  But I suppose it's too hard for the advertising people to do their jobs and make the lesser-known ships desirable.  Come up with packaging that will make me want to buy this kit of a ship I've never heard of before.  Like the old box art that stirred your imagination with actual paintings of the ship in action.  HINT!!!

On the other side of the argument, though -

The manufactureres know there's a large hardcore model building community out there - and they know that we know about our subjects.  Otherwise why would they go to the trouble and expense of making all those aftermarket PE and resin parts and decals, and also all those highly specialized informational books.  They cater to us with that stuff, and that's not stuff that the casual modeler buys, who wants to build a ship but he just doesn't know enough about any particular ship - WAIT! The Yamato - the largest battleship ever built. Cool!  I'll take that! You know - that guy - would ever buy.  So they know there's a general, casual market and a deeper, specialized market as well.  How many Bismarcks or Yamatos can guys like us build before we get tired of the same old subjects?  Maybe one Bismarck and 2 Yamatos - one each of the original configuration and the final configuration (Bismarck I think never had a chance for a refit).  And that makes the same number of aftermarket sets.  They know we're out here and they should also know that we want more and different subjects.  Trumpeter is doing something about it - but is anyone else?  Tamiya, with their one and only new 1/350 kit offering in the past 25 years?  There's more coming, with a few new 1/350 Japanese cruiser kits lined up for later this year (hopefully) but there's too much of the same oldrun-of-the-mill stuff too.  Sure, you can throw another big Bismarck at us - but at the same time, give us something else as well!  Wouldn't this be the perfect time for a 1/350 Prinz Eugen to go with the Bismarck?  I expect we'll see a 1/350 Prince of Wales instead, unless they want to go with the Hood (already being offered by Trumpeter).  But I hope they prove me wrong - there's nothing I'd like better than to have too many big ship models and not enough space - right now I have the opposite problem!

There's always a new way to do an old subject.  Remember how blown away we all were by the first PE and resin update stuff?   Improvements in fit and detail can always turn a new kit of a standard into a winner.  In the mid-70s, Hasegawa was like something dropped straight from modeler heaven.  I've got a bunch of those 70's kits, and compared to what's available today, they're a little sad, but, my goodness!  What a leap forward they represented!

In addition to just flat out better kits, look for things like cut-away options, motorization, sound modules, lighting, battle-damaged parts...  What can you imagine doing to a kit?  Would you build a model of Bismark as she sits now?  How cool would a kit of Bismark be if it had an infrared sensor and motors in it, and the main battery would track anyone who walked by?  Gimmicky?  Sure.  But what fun!  With the enormous leaps in micro-miniaturization, so much is possible!  Look at the detail of kits today as compared to those of 15 years ago - and we ain't even gonna THINK about the Aurora Missouri I built in '58!

I'm just glad to see Revell doing something besides reboxing the same tired old kits from the same worn out old dies.  Now, about that kit of the old Texas....